1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing system, an information processing apparatus, and an information processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2007-200284 discloses a print server. The print server is placed between a client PC and an image forming apparatus, stores a print job transmitted from the client PC, and transfers the stored print job to the image forming apparatus according to a request from the image forming apparatus. In a print system including such a print server, a user enters a print instruction into the client PC first. The client PC sends a print job according to the print instruction to the print server. The print server stores the print job in a storage device such as a HDD (hard Disk Drive) instead of immediately transferring the print job to the image forming apparatus. After that, the user operates the image forming apparatus in order to instruct the image forming apparatus to print the print job. The image forming apparatus obtains the print job from the print server according to the instruction so as to perform printing.
According to such a print system, the user can select an image forming apparatus for printing after entering the print instruction.
On the other hand, logs of processing of the image forming apparatus are recorded for the purpose of obtaining usage status and analyzing failures and the like. In a medium-sized or large-sized user environment where a plurality of image forming apparatuses are placed, a server (to be referred to as “log server” hereinafter) is placed for collectively managing logs. An image forming apparatus such as a line printer (to be referred to as a low-end machine hereinafter) that does not have a high-capacity auxiliary storage device can not record a log. Therefore, in a period when the low-end machines were the mainstream, recording of logs and transferring of logs to the log server were performed by the print server.
However, in recent years, there is an image forming apparatus (to be referred to as high-end machine hereinafter), such as a multifunctional machine, having a high-capacity auxiliary storage device such as the HDD (Hard Disk Drive). The high-end machine can record logs, and transfer the logs to the log server. In a case when a print server having a function of transferring logs to the log server is used together with the high-end machine, there may be a case where a log of a print job is sent from the print server to the log server, and also a log of the print job is sent from the high-end machine to the log server. Thus, there is a possibility that logs of a print job overlap at the log server. If it is not specified that the logs relate to the same print job, there is a possibility that usage status and the like cannot be ascertained correctly.